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Future(?) Design of Mobile Phones 162

Posted by CmdrTaco from the well-ok-not-quite dept.
Sad Loser writes "The future of the mobile phone is here, or at least a bunch of Nokia-sponsored industrial design students' take on the problem. The BBC also has more pictures." Most of these designs are quite silly (a necklace with squeezable beads for an address book?) but at least amusing.

China Files Case Against Intel's Wireless Network 274

Posted by Hemos from the going-thru-the-money dept.
Krishna Dagli writes "China has launched a case against American chipmaker Intel's near-monopoly on encryption standards for wireless local area network (WLAN) equipment, state press reported Monday."

How iPods Took Over the World 360

Posted by Zonk from the thought-control-in-white-plastic dept.
An anonymous reader writes "The Observer has a piece today about the iPod's ascension to dominance of the mp3 player market. The author argues that it's largely the result of clever business tactics and the iTunes music store." From the article: "The second thing about the iPod: it puts you, not them, in control. Basically, the record labels are devotees of the Henry Ford business model: 'You can have any music you want so long as it's what I want to give you.' But using the cyberspace jukebox, you're no longer at their mercy. You don't have to pay for the four filler tracks on every album. You don't have to buy albums at all. You can put country next to classical, punk next to jazz, Barry Manilow next to Placido Domingo (wait, that's a joke)."

Comment Integration (Score 4, Insightful) 300

by AAeyers (#15389779) Attached to: Apple and Nike Team up for iPod Shoe Interface
This must be part of the wireless patents Apple filed for a while back. I would not at all be surprised if this idea of wireless integration gets incorporated into more and more things. Imagine if you could carry your ipod with you all day and have it work automatically with your home stereo, shoes, car, etc. The ipod could become much more than an mp3 player, and could help collect data (pedometer, etc) and stream music to different sources automatically.

This seems like exactly the thing Jobs and Apple would pursue, a seamless system of wireless integration would perfectly embody their philosophies of style, power, simplicity, and having things 'just work'. It may be just a new shoe accessory right now, but I for one could see this type of technology evolving into new areas

Canadian Music Stars Fight Against DRM 506

Posted by samzenpus from the it's-ok-to-share-eh dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Some of Canada's best known musicians, including Avril Lavigne, Sarah McLachlin, Sum 41, and Barenaked Ladies, have formed a new copyright coalition. The artists say in a press release that they oppose file sharing lawsuits, the use of DRM, and DMCA-style legislation and that they want record labels to stop claiming that they represent their views."

Linspire Announces Freespire Distribution 223

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the let's-muddy-the-waters-a-bit dept.
LinuxScribe writes "Is the world ready for another community Linux distro a là Fedora and openSUSE? We're about to find out, as Linspire used the Desktop Linux Summit to announce a community-driven version of Linspire, to be called Freespire. But here's the twist, Freespire will come in two flavors: a completely open source version and a version that includes all of the fully-licensed proprietary apps, drivers, and codecs in Linspire."

Pr0n's Effect On Society 1021

Posted by Zonk from the keep-it-clean-please dept.
Rytis writes "An article at the Financial Times is analysing the growing impact of internet pornography, the phenomena itself and the problems that it causes to our society. Surveys within Great Britain have shown that more than a half of 9-19 years olds have seen pornography online. From the article: 'To some men, Haynes argues, clicking on porn is simply a way to pass the time. It's a hobby. Once they'd idly play solitaire; now they idly click on a porn site. Others, though, succumb to addiction: Most addictions are to do with internal emptiness, wanting to fill up dead space, and addiction is always destructive.'"

Maryland Votes To Ban Diebold Voting Machines 240

Posted by Zonk from the now-maybe-they'll-have-real-votes dept.
vandon writes "Computerworld.com reports: 'The state Maryland House of Delegates this week voted 137-0 to approve a bill prohibiting election officials from using AccuVote-TSx touch-screen systems in 2006 primary and general elections. The legislation calls for the state to lease paper-based optical-scan systems for this year's votes. State Delegate Anne Healey estimated the leasing cost at $12.5 million to $16 million for the two elections.'"

Amazon's Online Movie Service 79

Posted by Zonk from the friday's-right-for-fighting dept.
ebresie writes "According to the NYT, it looks as though Amazon is going to start competing with iTunes movie downloads." From the article: "So far, Paramount Pictures, Universal Studios and Warner Brothers are engaged in the talks, said one person close to the talks who, like the others, asked not to be identified because the negotiations are continuing. Although it is not clear when it might begin, an Amazon downloading service would be sure to send waves through both the media and retail worlds. Players in both industries are racing to offer new ways to give technology-savvy audiences instant access to their favorite shows and songs, in a field crowded with potential rivals using Internet and on-demand technologies. "

The New Face of Script Kiddiez 230

Posted by Zonk from the some-of-them-are-actually-quite-old dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Washingtonpost.com's Security Fix blog has an interesting post profiling the activities of a kid named Witlog who controls a botnet of roughly 30,000 hacked Windows PCs. Even after the authorities manage to shut down the network Witlog uses to control his bots, he pops up somewhere else. From the article: 'Witlog may in fact be the product of a new generation of script kiddiez; the chief distinguishing feature of this generation being that instead of using Web site flaws to deface as many Web sites as possible, these guys are breaking into thousands of home and work PCs and taking them for a virtual joyride, often times all the way to the bank.'"

Designer Mice Made to Order 382

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the time-to-start-a-mouse-farm dept.
blackbearnh writes "CNN is reporting about the world of designer mice. No, not the kind you click, the kind that scamper around and eat cheese. An effort is underway to produce mice with each of the 20-25,000 individual mouse genes "knocked out", which could lead to novel new treatments for humans. It turns out that after fully sequencing the mouse genome, the little fellas are almost identical to humans. From the article: 'A mouse with arthritis runs close to $200; two pairs of epileptic mice can cost 10 times that. You want three blind mice? That'll run you about $250. And for your own custom mouse, with the genetic modification of your choosing, expect to pay as much as $100,000.'"

Playing the World From a Basement 145

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the folks-who-don't-like-to-leave-their-basement dept.
Albanach writes "Singer songwriter Sandi Thom is one of a growing band of new musicians using the internet to circumvent the traditional and traditionally expensive tour circuit. Thom described her free online concerts as a Web Tour, saying 'A web tour is basically what you do when you have a lack of money and no car.' Services such as The Streaming Tank have grown to satisfy the need for broadcast services and the figures are impressive. Just 74 people watched Thom's first concert on February 24th. The concert on March 2nd drew 62,138 viewers."

Are Marines Censoring Web Access for Troops in Iraq? 925

Posted by Roblimo from the very-bad-if-it's-true dept.
Gavin86 and others have submitted links to This Wonkette article (profanity warning) about the Marines Corps blocking access to some Web sites for their people in Iraq. This article was a follow-up to an earlier Wonkette post. Before I posted these links, I looked for verification of this problem but found nothing but links to Wonkette, so I cannot say for sure whether this is true. Hopefully, alert Slashdot readers (like you) will post confirmations if, indeed, there are any to be found. Meanwhile, if this is true, it's eerily reminiscent of an experience I had when I visited Saudi Arabia in January, 2004.
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Journal Journal: Just Switched

Journal by AAeyers
Well, after building up my karma, and getting the ultimate post (first post with +5 funny) and being an almost daily moderator, I am abandoning my old account and starting fresh. So if you see any of my posts, help I guy out and help me build my karma back up, eh?

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